To output documents at printing apparatuses, print data can be supplied in a page description language (PDL). The print data can be processed by the printing apparatus and, based on the print data, color separations are generated that then serve for the generation of print images on a substrate material with the aid of a print group of the printing apparatus. Example page description languages include, for example, the Page Command Language (PCL) developed by the Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, USA; the PostScript (PS) language developed by Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, USA; the Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) language used in the high-capacity printing field, including diverse developments such as the Mixed Object Content Architecture (MO:DCA) and the Intelligent Printer Data Stream (IPDS) page description language. The Portable Document Format (PDF), developed by Adobe Systems Inc., can be used to exchange document data between various application programs. To print from databases, the Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML) has been developed by the Print On Demand Initiative (PODi), Rochester, USA.
Due to the multitude of technical environments in the creation, storage, forwarding and output of document data, difficulties often arise in the compatibility, transfer security, data loss and processing speed of different formats at various printing apparatuses and print pre-processing systems. In particular, given printing apparatuses for the printing of continuous substrate material or a continuous recording medium, the printing of substrate material with preprinted forms is very complicated since, given a form change, the substrate material webs (which are often supplied via paper rolls) then must be removed from the printing apparatus and the roll must be exchanged for an additional substrate material roll preprinted with a form. For this, the additional substrate material must be drawn into the printer. Given print data of a page description language that have already been generated by an application, it is also not possible (or is possible only with difficulty) to modify the print image, in particular to insert auxiliary information into the document to be printed. In order to print to preprinted substrate material rolls, print data of multiple print jobs that require the same preprinted substrate material can be collected.
A method and a computer program product for outputting legacy document data organized per page, where legacy document data can include variable document data and tray commands that relate to feed trays of single sheet printers, are described in German Patent Application No. 10 2010 036 336 A1. To print the documents, an established form preprint sheet must respectively be located in the feed trays. To output these print data onto unprinted material, preprint images are superimposed based on the feed trays established in the print data.
A method and a computer program product for converting an input document data stream having at least one document into a structured data file based on a created rule set are described in German Patent Application No. 10 2005 030 645 A1.
A method to determine print resources for the creation of a print image by a printing device, as well as a control unit to control a printing device, are described in German Patent Application No. 10 2014 106 762 A1, in which method and control unit the data volume of print resources is reduced. The print resources are identified with the aid of an identifier, wherein the identifier is dependent on the use data of the print resources. Print resources for the generation of identical print images are thereby reliably identified as identical print resources.
The exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.